NEWS ITEMS

Super City Prioritizes Children

Detail:

According to John Angus, new Children's Commissioner, Auckland's proposed Super City is an opportunity to give more attention to the needs of children. Angus said, "Children are big users of public transport, swimming pools, recreational facilities and libraries, so their interests as consumers need to be taken account of in any changes." Dr Angus, who replaced Dr Cindy Kiro last month, is writing a submission asking for children's needs to be considered in the bill setting up the Super City.

Picking up on a theme in the report of the Royal Commission on Auckland Governance, Angus emphasized on the need to tackle extreme inequalities in social services. "I think there are opportunities to look across Auckland as a whole at the distribution of services to children. The royal commission touched on some of those things - the distribution of early childhood education services across Auckland, for example, is quite skewed," he said.

The Super City which proposes putting in place a new governance structure for the city provides an opportunity to have systems for more equitable distribution of resources. Angus said his staff were consulting the commissioner's young personís reference group and youth councils in the seven Auckland council districts to help them to make submissions on the bill.